Long Distance
by Zosonils
Summary: (title is subject to change) The story of two teenagers whose innocent internet friendship develops into something else entirely through thrills, tragedy, and time. Sonic Parlouzer, a lonely guy on a lonely island with a broken family life, and Amy Rose, a girl from the big city whose dreams are always shot down. With the help of other online friends, can they ever be together?
1. Chapter 1: Nice to Meet Chao

**Chapter 1: Nice To Meet Chao**

 **Well, after vanishing off the face of FF for a good couple months, I'm back! If you haven't read my stuff before, welcome to xX*Slightly Above Average Fanfiction Town*Xx! If you're anxiously awaiting my main two stories, don't worry. Neither of them are discontinued. I'm suffering from writer's block, so they're on a bit of a hiatus, but I'll finish Legacy and A Tale Of Origins for sure. But my other work isn't important right now. If I'm going to make long ranty author notes as always, I might as well focus on the story in question…**

 **So, this is my first try at writing a story specifically focused on a shipping, as well as my first (good) AU. It's not going to be some kind of R-rated 'please sleep with me I'm not wearing anything' *lenny face intensifies* BS. There's enough of that already. It's more a story of two strangers who slowly become friends and, through happiness and tragedy, realise their feelings for each other. I am rating this T for mild swearing, some serious themes, and slight references to, um, you know. It probably won't get too bad, but I won't hold it against you if you stop reading at any time due to the content.**

 **So without further ado, I present to you, Long Distance. (I might change the title. It's bad. But anyways here we go)**

 _South Island  
12 August, 2:47 AM_

"Come on, Sonny, you can do it!" Sonic Parlouzer yelled at his screen. "One more hit! ONE MORE HIT!"

"Next hit takes all, hey?" his friend Miles 'Tails' Prower responded from over Skype. "Let's go, Kitsune!"

The two Chao on the screen faced each other off. Sonic nervously tapped on the W key. His Chao, a Neutral-Run-Run he had called Sonny, took a few seconds to step forwards towards Tails' chosen Chao, Kitsune, a Hero-Fly-Swim. The Chao looked at each other, almost as if daring each other to take the first hit. Then, Sonny swung his fist around a few times, and went right for Kitsune. "Yes! YES!" Sonic shouted. But the Hero Chao dodged sideways at the last moment, then punched at Sonny. Sonic's face fell. "No! NO! DAMN IT!" he raged as his Chao fell over, his health bar completely empty.

Tails laughed. "Go, Kitsune! I knew you could win!" he praised his virtual Chao. "Good game, Sonic." He looked up from one of the two boxes at the top of Sonic's screen and held out his hand.

Sonic sighed and poked the screen. "Hacker," he muttered.

"Hey, I don't hack online games, you know that!" Tails protested. "Just because I could doesn't mean I will…"

Sonic finally cracked a grin. "I know, buddy. We all know you're not a cheater. But you must've done _something_ to Kitsune for her beat Sonny, right?"

The other participant in the call, Blaze Sol, laughed. "Yeah, like training his Chao in all stats, not just speed," she shot. "Well, it's me versus the winner, isn't it? Hurry up. My parents want me to go and get fitted for some stupid dresses or whatever soon, so I'll need to make this a quick battle." She flexed her fingers. "Ember will mop the floor with Kitsune. Well, this is a child-friendly game, but you know what I mean."

"I'm gonna go find some other players to fight with, 'kay?" Sonic said. He went to wander around the hub world of Chao Island while Blaze's Dark-Power-Power sent a battle request to Tails. He brought up the list of players on the server and set the filter criteria to only users around his skill level. Aside from _Doubletail22_ (Tails) and _xXSol_PrincessXx_ (Blaze), a user called _Rosy_the_rascal_93_ with a Hero-Power-Run Chao called Rose was the only user who came up. He shrugged and sent a battle request to them. The default text of 'SuperSonicChao wants to battle!' was sent to Rosy. Within five seconds, he was notified that his request had been accepted, and the fight began.

While Tails and Blaze trash-talked on each other, Sonic carefully moved his Chao around, pressing the right buttons at the right time to get some critical hits in with Sonny. But the gamer behind Rose was obviously skilled, and hit back harder. Much harder. Sonic regretted every single time he hadn't levelled up his Chao's Swim stat. He dodged another hit, but Rosy_the_rascal_93 took the opportunity to punch from another direction, almost completely wiping out Sonny's health. Sonic swore under his breath and stepped backwards to recover some stamina. The two Chao walked towards each other, and Sonic slammed his finger onto the space bar. His opponent must have done the same thing at the same time, because Sonny and Rose were instantly locked in an intense battle. Recognising what was going on, Sonic entered all the on-screen commands as fast as he could.

"CRAP!" Blaze suddenly shouted angrily. Sonic screamed at the sudden voice in his headphones and flew backwards in his swivel chair. With nobody to tell Sonny what to do, Rose easily overpowered him. As Tails laughed triumphantly in the background, Blaze growled, "I pressed the wrong button…"

" _Blaze,_ you made me lose a battle to a random stranger!" Sonic complained. Sighing, he opened the private message system. Ignoring the text of _Make sure your parents or guardians are okay with you using private messaging!_ , he typed in, _Good game. My friend scared me over Skype and I lost focus._

 _Lol, sure,_ Rosy replied. _If that's how it happened, want a rematch?_

 _No thanks, it's almost 3 AM here,_ Sonic declined. _We always hang out on this server, though, because it's quiet. Add me to your friends so that I know when you're up for a rematch ;)_

A friend request came through to Sonic almost instantly from Rosy. He accepted it and blinked, suddenly hit by fatigue. Nearly 3 in the morning? When did that happen? "It's, uh… 2:57 in the morning on Boredom Island," Sonic told his friends. "Sorry, but I need to sleep. See you guys later."

"It's okay, I have to go to this dumb fitting thing in like five minutes," Blaze sighed. "Goodnight, Sonic. See you, Tails."

"Bye, guys," Tails said cheerfully, then the window with his face in it closed. Sonic signed off of the Skype call, logged out of Chao Island, and snapped his laptop shut. Rubbing his eyes, he collapsed on his bed. It only took a minute for him to fall fast asleep.

xX*Xx

 _Station Square  
11 August, 4:27 PM_

Amy Rose smiled to herself. She went to go and keep training her Chao, Rose, so that she could obliterate SuperSonicChao again later. She had only been playing Chao Island for three weeks, but she was already at the same level as a lot of players who had been registered users for months. Rose wasn't the fastest Chao, with an E in the Run stat, but what she lacked in races she made up for in karate. According to the stats, she had a 97% win rate from about two hundred battles.

Amy had never found a game quite like this before, but she was enjoying it more than all of the other MMORPGs she had played before combined. It was just her kind of game - not too advanced, not too violent, very cute, but requiring real skill to master. And best of all, she didn't know of anybody from her school who played. So it was somewhere she could retreat to for safety.

Looking at the time, Amy winced. 4:30. Homework time. Sighing, she took a note of the server she had been connected to for the sake of finding her opponent again, then logged out of Chao Island and went to dig around in her backpack until she found the latest maths worksheet. She placed her iPod on the music dock and started her playlist, then began going through the work.

For an impressive thirteen minutes, she stayed focused. Then her mind wandered, as usual. The normal topics came up. Whatever weird stuff had happened at school that day, when her mother might come home, what she would get together for dinner, whether she would try and cook something herself for once or throw something ready-made in the microwave again, what her friends from her old school were doing. Just like nearly every single time she tried to work on her homework, Amy allowed herself to become distracted. She considered logging into Chao Island again, but reminded herself that SuperSonicChao had mentioned it was 3 in the morning on their side. She forced herself to complete another two problems, then sighed and laid down on her bed. She stood up again. _Don't forget what you're doing._

Amy grabbed her laptop, homework and pencil case and left her apartment for the next one over. Maybe she would be able to concentrate better over there. And besides, Miss Usagi always had food to spare. Pushing all thoughts of Chao Island and her friendly new opponent away, Amy walked next door, hoping to find someplace to concentrate, and not thinking anything of the mysterious user from halfway across the world.


	2. Chapter 2: WTMEBL (Sonic)

**Chapter 2: Welcome to my Extremely Boring Life**

 ***Responses to guest reviews*  
(user reviews were replied via PM. Check your inbox)  
Yozia: Thank you! Quite a lot of characters will come into this, and I'll be doing some really interesting stuff with them all! :)**

 **Wow, the reception of the first chapter was great! Thanks, everyone! I'll keep working on this for you all :D I'll probably talk about this story quite a bit on my Instagram, so follow me there if you're interested! My username is listed on my user profile. But enough of that, chapter time! *jazz hands***

Hey! The name's Sonic. Sonic Parlouzer. I'm a sixteen-year-old hedgehog, blue fur, green eyes, single if you're a girl looking for someone. I live on South Island, the least interesting place to ever actually be settled on. Including me, the population is 78. It sucks, and nobody here really cares all that much about me, but I can't exactly go anywhere else. It's a long story that I'll get into later. I don't do that badly on Boring Island. That's thanks to my friends, a group of madly funny and interesting and important people on the internet. Yeah, my only friends are on the internet. Who cares? We Skype all the time, and play video games together, and talk about our lives, and get annoyed when we call each other at midnight. It's just like in-person friendships, except we can't noogie each other. And honestly, looking at Knuckles' hands, that's probably for the best.

Well, now that I've used one of their names, I guess I'll have to introduce my friends. First on the list has to be Tails. His real name's Miles Prower, but we call him Tails, because he has two of 'em. Crazy, huh? He's a fox from a smallish town near Apotos, he's fourteen, and if he isn't just the cutest damn thing you've ever seen I'll eat my computer. I met him when he was eleven, and I swear, he was just the saddest little guy in the world. He was bullied, struggled with anxiety and depression, considered doing some really bad stuff. But luckily for him, I came along to save the day by reporting some assholes on YouTube, adding him to the group, and getting everybody to talk to him and make him stay positive. We're pretty much best friends now, and he's really turned his life around. Also, he's a coder and hacker, but he says that he never uses it to cheat. I guess I can believe him.

Hmm. Next up is Knuckles Guardian, I guess. He's seventeen, and he lives on a remote island, too, called Angel Island. It's where all of the last echidnas, like him, live. He says that the island flies and has a big magical emerald on it that glows and keeps it in the sky or something like that, but nobody believes him. He has spikes on his hands, which is kinda weird. Apparently most echidnas have them, but he comes up with a lot of trippy 'facts' about echidna-land. Last time someone said that, though, he got really mad. He kinda has anger issues, but he's a great guy when you get to know him.

Okay, getting better with the descriptions. Now I'll move onto Rouge Gunn. She's a seventeen-year-old bat from Station Square, the big city up north. I guess you could say she's good looking. Great figure, big aqua eyes, always wears really nice blue eyelid stuff (whatever it's called) and pink lipstick. I'm not really interested in romance, but I totally get why guys would be into her. She's one of the most popular girls at her school, apparently. Why she'd choose to hang out with a bunch of losers online instead of chilling with the hundred girls who want to be her friend, taking selfies or whatever girls do in their spare time, I don't know. But she does.

Then we have Silver Trigger. He's fifteen, going on sixteen, and possibly one of the most unironically nice guys you'll ever meet. He's a hedgehog, and the most important thing about his appearance is that he looks like he's got weed on his head because of his quills. About a year before he came into the group, his home city was hit by the 'Eggman Empire', you know, the group of terrorists who won't leave the world alone, which killed both of his parents and ruined his life. He lives in Soleanna, or 'Crisis City', as some people call it now. He seems like he's doing okay, but I have to say, I feel kinda bad for the guy. I'm stuck on an island with nobody to talk to, but at least my home's still standing and my parents are still alive.

That ended up being a buzzkill. Moving on, the last member of our little group is Blaze Sol. Cat, sixteen years old. She lives in Spagonia, and her family is really wealthy. Like, aristocrats or whatever. They're always trying to make her do rich-person stuff like playing tennis and drinking tea and discussing the weather with other rich people at rich person parties, but she prefers to hang out with us peasants and play games on the internet. I have the feeling that she has much less attitude and sass and sarcasm in front of her parents and their rich friends. She's also been online dating Silver for 4 months, because they are so perfect together and we all ship them.

So, yeah, that's my friends. Jeez, that took a long time. Now that you know who everyone is, I need to actually get into what's happening in my life. It's usually a pretty straightforward existence. I play video games and talk to my friends, then go and run around exploring when Uncle Chuck (oh, yeah, I'll explain who he is in a second. Be patient) needs to use my computer to put his research online, and sometimes frantically struggle through the three weeks' worth of internet school I didn't finish because I was too busy with important things like racing my virtual Chao. The latest interesting part happened when I was playing Chao Island at 3 AM last night. I met another user called _Rosy_the_rascal_93_ , who I did a Chao Karate battle with. My Chao, a Neutral-Run-Run called Sonny, would've won, but Blaze suddenly raged loudly in my headphones and jumpscared me. Me and Rosy agreed to have a rematch when I was actually supposed to be awake, which brings me to the events of today.

I woke up at like 7 AM, which sucked because I got no sleep, had breakfast, and then got bored. I logged into Chao Island, because me and my friends got back into the game after not playing for a few years and now that's just about all we ever play. So, the game has a friend system, where you can add people as friends and then be notified when they're online. I was notified that Knuckles, or _noodlestheenchilada69_ (Tails set his account up), was doing a race with his Chao, Volcano (Neutral-Power-Power btw), and that my mysterious friend Rosy was wandering the hub world. They must have noticed I was online, because they instantly sent me a battle request. I accepted it and Sonny was immediately facing down his opponent, a Hero-Power-Run called Rose.

I entered all the commands correctly, dodged whenever I could, got a few hits in. I was going well. Sonny's health had been drained a little, but he was doing okay. Rose was only on half, so I was winning so far. There were only 20 seconds left in the battle. You have 90 seconds to fight, and if neither of the Chao are down by the end, whoever has the most health left wins. Rosy would need a miracle to beat me now. Just for good measure, I sent Sonny in to land another punch, but he missed. And then, I am not joking, Rose got in a _critical hit_ on Sonny. She just slammed right into him. And what with her being a Power Chao, we were toast. Sonny's health halved in one go, and before I could recover, the match was over.

"No!" I shouted angrily. I pulled my headphones off and threw them. That's what I do when I get mad at video games. I throw my headphones. Just go with it. I walked over and picked them up, and plugging them in again, I opened the PM system. Ignoring the dumb warning for little kids, I typed to Rosy, _HOW?_

 _I'm just a good gamer ;)_ they replied. Then, immediately after: _Try to improve Sonny's Swim and Power stats. Speed might help in racing, but not in battles._

 _Yeah, but he's a Sonic Chao. I don't wanna mess with his good looks,_ I wrote back. Yes, there is such a thing as a Sonic Chao. It's the evolution that Sonny has, Neutral-Run-Run. And in case you're wondering, yes, they do look exactly like me. And no, I was not named after a Chao. Actually, I've never asked why I have the same name as an evolution of Chao that looks exactly like me. Um, crap, gonna have to look into that. Jeez, that'd be pretty awkward to be named aft- why am I talking about my name?

Anyways, the conversation was interrupted when Knuckles called me on Skype. I answered him, and his face appeared on my screen. "Hey, loser, I just obliterated the computer, want to race each other?" he asked me. "Volcano doesn't suck as much at running as he used to."

"That's not saying much, Noodles," I smiled back. "Okay, I'm gonna make a race group." I clicked on the 'create group' button, set it to racing and friends only, and then confirmed it. "Alright, you scrub, join me so I can mop the floor with you in fifteen seconds."

"You've never beat a single race in less than 35 seconds, though," Knuckles complained, being a smartass of course, but I saw the enchilada come up on the list. Then, suddenly, Rosy came up underneath him. Knuckles stared at his screen. "Who's Rosy_the_rascal_93?" he asked me.

"Oh, they're this player I added to my friends so we could have a rematch. I don't wanna kick 'em, so just play with them," I explained, and started the game. "We are going to do the neutral course… with computer competitors turned off… luck mechanic on, intelligence mechanic off, cheering on, and let's do this!"

57 seconds later, Sonny had completed the course twenty seconds before Rose, and Volcano had struggled through in about 40. "Get rekt. I am the fast master," I smirked.

"You always win," Knuckles whined.

"Sonny has an S in Run and he's almost level 100. Of course he always wins," I replied, while typing to Rosy, _Good game, but racing flows through my veins._

 _You mean it runs through them?_ Rosy replied, which made me laugh. "What is it?" Knux asked. "Are you really that happy that you beat me at something?"

"Saw something funny," I said, managing to contain myself. "Like your face when I won…" I burst out laughing again, and when Knuckles hung up and logged out, I laughed even harder. I typed to Rosy, _You literally made me laugh out loud. Become a comedian pls._

 _Rose isn't very good at racing, but she'll beat Sonny in karate without trying!_ Rosy replied. _So, who was noodlestheenchilada69?_

 _My other friend. He literally hung up on Skype after I beat him,_ I explained. _You on Skype?_

There was a pause at the other end, like Rosy was surprised. _My username's Rosy The Rascal,_ they eventually replied. _Do you want to add me?_

I quickly switched over to Skype and typed _rosy the rascal_ into the search. Two results came up. One of them was a 63-year-old from Chun-Nan, so I assumed that wasn't them. I sent a contact request, and within a minute, it had been accepted. 'Hi! Nice to meet you,' I typed, hoping to come off as friendly.

'Hello, SuperSonicChao!' they typed back. 'My real name is Amy. What's yours?'

'It's Sonic,' I replied. 'Nice to meet you, Amy!'

'I've never had a friendship with somebody over the internet before. Do we have a conversation or what?' she asked.

"Seriously?" I said in the real world. "You're missing out." Then, in type, I responded, 'We can call if you want?'

'No, it's 9:30 pm and a lot of my neighbours are asleep. Soz,' she apologised.

'K, fair enough.'

'Actually, I have to go to school tomorrow, and I have to wake up really early. TTYL, and nice to meet you, Sonic!' With that, Amy went offline.

'Night! :D' I typed, then switched over to our group chat. 'Any of you scrubs online? I know you are, Knux.'

For a moment, nobody said anything. 'Let me sleep, it's half past nine,' Rouge finally added.

"Wow," I said out loud, and went to check through my Instagram feed instead, wondering if Amy was allowed to use her phone at school.


	3. Chapter 3: A New Friend (?) (Amy)

**Chapter 3: A New Friend (?)**

 **So I left this alone for like ages and I'm sorry ;-;**

 **This was kind of left forgotten, but I have a stronger idea of how things will progress here now, and hopefully it'll continue to flow properly and I won't leave you guys hanging. Feel free to push me off a cliff.**

 **I'm publishing this very, very late at night. I should've waited until tomorrow morning and edited or something, but I really wanted to put it up. So without further ado, Long Distance, chapter 3.**

Hi! I'm Amy Rose. I'm a seventeen-year-old hedgehog from Station Square, with short pink hair and green eyes, and I'm just trying to achieve my dreams and carve out a life for myself. I live in a nice apartment, and while my mother is technically my legal guardian, she's often working abroad, which means that I have to take care of myself. I manage, though. Her paycheck is always sent to our address, and I've learnt to work with a budget. And if I ever ran into a tough spot, Vanilla Usagi, who lives next door, is always willing to help out. School and homework is probably the only real difficulty for me - and doesn't everyone have trouble with that?

So, on this particular day, I woke up and got ready for school as I do every morning. I was on time for the bus as usual, and sat back for the hour and a half ride from my place on the outer suburbs to the centre of the city, prepared with my iPhone and headphones. (How do people use earbuds? They're uncomfortable and always fall out and get tangled up and lost. Not headphones. They're big and comfy and look awesome and you'll never lose them and they don't fall off.) For the first fifteen minutes, I let my music cycle through. Most girls in my age group like boy bands, but I'm not most girls in my age group. My favourite band is Crush 40, and they do rock. But anyways, I was in the middle of a song when I heard a Skype notification come through.

See, this isn't normal for me. I never get notifications on social media. I'm kind of an outsider. I don't have any real friends in school, and nobody in my class follows me anywhere, except for Mum because parents do that kind of thing and this one guy called Shadow who I guess wanted to follow me because I was the only person who'd follow him back. So, of course, I was interested in why I was being messaged. I turned my phone on, and the username reminded me of what had happened last night. SuperSonicChao.

Well, explanation time. Again. I'll try to shorten it: last night I was playing Chao Island. It's my new favourite game - it's like all the other MMORPGs, except adorable! But anyways, I played with this nice user called SuperSonicChao, who was good at racing but I also beat him twice in karate. And then - get this - he asked my Skype name. I had known him for less than a day, and he was already asking to add me on social media? Still, I like the idea of having friends. I haven't really had any since I moved here when I was 11 (but that's another story for another day). So I let him add me. His real name is Sonic, but I don't know much else about him. Still, he seems very nice.

Okay, now that you know who this guy is, back to the actual events. I opened Skype to look at the image he had sent me. It was a picture of a Dark-Power Chao, in the same position as the posters for this one politician who's trying to get into some position of power or something, with a parody of the infamous slogan underneath reading 'Make Chao Island Great Again'. I laughed unusually hard at it, then stopped myself quickly, hoping that the two other people on the bus (well, not many people need to get on public transport at 7 a.m.) weren't judging me. I typed a quick 'lmao' back to Sonic. I wasn't expecting much else, but he almost instantly responded. _Question: Do you know if that guy is actually as bad as the internet tells me?_

I replied as fast as I could on my tiny phone screen. _He's giving my country a bad reputation, but he can't do much. Of course, if he ran for president, it would be just as bad as all the memes say._

 _Rip. So, you're from the United Federation?_

 _Yeah._ I paused for a moment, considering whether or not to elaborate, then decided I could trust Sonic - anyways, it's a big city. _I'm in Station Square. Where you at?_

 _South Island._

 _Where is that?_

 _Tiny island in the middle of the Whatever It's Called Ocean. 78 people living on it, including myself. I don't blame you for not knowing where it is, I didn't either until I moved here like a year ago._

 _Oh, okay. Wyd?_

 _Waiting for my uncle to finish using my computer so I can go back to playing Chao Island instead of just browsing memes about it. You?_

 _Bus ride to school. I have an hour or so to kill if you wanna talk?_

 _Sounds great!_ My phone told me that 'SuperSonicChao is typing…' so I let him write his next message. It came through a moment later. _So I don't know all that much about you, and you don't know me very well yet. What kinda stuff do you like, etcetera?_

I decided to compile a quick list of things about myself. Nothing that might put me at too much risk in case he wasn't who he said he was, but interesting enough to tell him about me if he was genuine. _I'm 16 years old, going on 17, I like video games and anime/manga, my favourite music style is 80's rock, I make jokes that nobody else finds funny, I can work with either 'I just want to be friends with everyone' or 'if you breathe near me I will impale you', and the main things that make me angry are slow internet, stereotypes, and badly written forced pairings._

Sonic didn't reply for a moment - I guess he was reading - and then fired back with a list that perfectly mirrored my own. _I'm 16 as of this year, I like gaming and running, anything with guitar and/or good lyrics pleases my ears, I'm funny when I'm not stuttering, I'm usually either carefree or capable-of-murder serious, and I hate lagging, people who exploit other people, and water._

 _Did you copy my list format on purpose?_ I ask.

 _Yes. Yes, I did. What's your favourite game series?_

 _With the exception of one-offs? I'm not sure how to choose just one, but my top three are_ The Chronicles Of Hilda, Nanomon, _or_ Doodlenauts.

 _Hilda is consistently great and fun, Nanomon is timeless, Doodlenauts looks creative (haven't played it tho), but my all-time favourite is by far_ Giga Man.

 _Cool. I haven't actually played Giga Man, but I've read the manga adaption, and it seems pretty interesting._

 _What are you doing? Find a computer and emulate an old Giga Man game instantly for the sake of your health!_

 _There's no WiFi here lmao XD Favourite game of all time?_

 _Giga Man Y for nostalgia, but Terrainus for overall quality. You?_

 _Nostalgically speaking, Doodlenauts Unbreakable is the only choice for me. But coming down to quality, my absolute favourite is definitely The Chronicles of Hilda: Winds of Nature._

 _Oh, you have WoN?_

 _Yeah, although I have the Uss E version, because I can't afford a Swap. It's honestly the greatest game I've played in a long time, although it can be tricky as hell sometimes._

 _The newest home console I have is the Ycube 180. It's hard to get literally anything out to an isolated community in the middle of nowhere. A lot of my friends got the Swap and apparently it's the best game of all time, but I can't get it for myself and I'm losing my mind over it._

 _Well, it is pretty awesome, not gonna lie. It doesn't have a 98/100 average review score and the most perfect reviews on a game of all time for nothing. I just wish that there wasn't so much anussbo-exclusive content for it._

 _If I get my hands on it somehow, I literally have a mental list of things I'm gonna do with Ecti in the game._

 _Examples?_

He immediately sends a string of messages. _Run straight to the final boss with only the first pair of pants I find and a leaf._ I laugh internally, remembering my own experience with that strategy. S _et as many things as possible on fire._ I sigh, again knowing how that's gonna turn out. _Take selfies of everything._ I make a mental note to do that - I haven't been doing that as much as I could be. _Get a horse and find the most outrageous name possible for it._ I decide that maybe my first instinct was right for that, although I still think I was tired and unreasonable when considering the name 'Ass' for my horse. Like I said, tired. _Talk to as many people as possible without any clothing equipped._ The memory of trying to do that makes me giggle. _Take Ecti's shirt off before every single cutscene so that the atmosphere is ruined by the hilarity of him standing there shirtless._ The mental image is funnier than I expected, and I have to fight to stop myself from bursting out laughing on the progressively-getting-more-crowded bus. _Literally just make any possible in-game joke about the ability to walk around in only boxers._ I finally give up and let out a laugh. _I have the maturity of a five year old._ I agree silently, but know that I'm the same.

Breathing heavily to stop myself from cracking up, I respond. _I tried heading for the final boss with a leaf and nothing else. It didn't really work out. At all._

 _Just smack the enemies on the head with your Epic Leaf Of Justice?_

 _The Epic Leaf Of Justice broke and I got my ass handed to me after one minute._

 _I need this game so badly. Can I have your copy?_

 _Okay, I'll throw it over the ocean and hope that it makes it there._

 _Well, I'm not swimming out there to get it XD_

I look at the time, and to my surprise, nearly half an hour has passed and I hardly even noticed. Usually, the time on the bus trip just crawls along at the slowest pace possible. Sometimes I catch up on sleep to pass the time, but it's a dangerous game. I'm a heavy sleeper, and getting too comfortable could lead to me snoring right through my stop and waking up halfway across Station Square (which actually happened once. Only once, but that's when I stopped doing that). But now that I have someone to talk to, the time's actually going by quickly - and I still don't have to worry about missing my stop.

Well, the conversation with Sonic continued until the bus pulled up outside school. Grabbing my bag and walking out, I sent my last message. _I just arrived at school and we can't text it class so I gtg. I'll ttyl._

 _Alright, I'll talk to you later._ Before I can put my phone away, he gets in one more message. _And for the love of all things holy, play Giga Man._

The school day wasn't very eventful. It was just a regular Tuesday, with no extraordinary events or unexpected plot twists. I walked in, dumped my stuff in my still-messy-beyond-words locker, and spent the day doing normal Tuesday things. Struggling through maths, feeling disappointed that we still weren't doing creative writing in English, half-assing my way through drama, playing Flash games in media. Avoiding Fiona Fox, Rouge Gunn and Sally Acorn so that they wouldn't take the piss out of me. Sitting with Shadow Kintobor at lunch and not saying a single word to him the entire time. Trying desperately to push through the crowd around the lockers and grab my stuff, just making it to the bus in time, and settling in for the long road home. When I finally make it home at four o'clock, I decide to go over to the apartment next door. I have a crapton of English homework, and Vanilla is very helpful with keeping me focused. That, and she always has food, and I don't have the energy to cook, the money to order pizza, or the tolerance for any more toasted sandwiches.

Within a second of me knocking, Cream Usagi is opening the door excitedly. She's Vanilla's single daughter, she's six years old, and the most adorable thing in this part of the city. "Hello, Miss Rose! It's lovely to see you! Please, come inside!" she greets me cheerfully, grabbing my hand and pulling me indoors.

As she always does when I come over, Cream starts to talk about everything that's happened since yesterday. Vanilla looks over from the kitchen table, where she's reading the newspaper, and waves. "Good afternoon, Amy. Here, I'll tidy up the table for you if you have homework to do. Would you like a drink while you're here? I have coffee, if you're interested…"

"It's alright," I decline. The last time I agreed to that offer, I didn't sleep for five days. The strongest drink I can handle is drinking chocolate. "I have a lot of homework to get started on, would you mind if I stay here for an hour or so?"

"That'd be lovely!" Cream agrees enthusiastically. "You can stay for dinner too, and you can stay overnight if you like, and-"

"Cream, that's enough," Vanilla tells her. "Although, she is right. Feel free to stay here for dinner if you don't have the energy to cook something yourself. I don't know how you manage, living alone at such a young age…"

"It's alright when you're used to it," I reassure her for the billionth time. I take out my homework and get started on it, so that it doesn't build up later on. In the background, Cream talks away, asking me questions which I provide one-word answers to, making jokes that I laugh at in the right places. Eventually, she runs out of things to tell me, so she sits down next to me with a cheap sketchbook and some crayons, and starts drawing. About half an hour into this, my phone goes off with another notification. It's Sonic again. He's sent another picture to me, with the caption of 'when your friend hasn't played Giga Man', and showing what I guess is an awkwardly timed screenshot from one of the games (I wouldn't know which one exactly, but it's definitely early 64-bit era) that looks like the namesake robot having a seizure. I laugh and send a fitting emoji back. He returns the same emoticon, then adds, _It's late af here and I need to learn how to sleep normally again so I'm gonna go to bed now. Night!_

 _Goodnight!_ I finish the conversation and turn off my phone, determined to continue concentrating.

I decide to make the most of the study time and put some more work into a few ongoing assignments. I end up getting three times as much work done as yesterday in only an hour and a half, and as a bonus, Vanilla insists that I stay for dinner (lasagne, it's amazing). When I get home at about six, I use my time well and spend a solid three hours gaming, mostly playing _Chao Island_ , but switching to _Winds of Nature_ whenever the internet cuts out - frustratingly often in my apartment, but it usually runs without problems, so I shouldn't complain too much. In between levelling up Rose, slamming noobs in karate, and giving the slammed noobs training tips to level out my karma and make the world a better place, I take Sonic's advice from earlier and take in-game selfies of everything I encounter in WoN. I manage to snap an image of the main character casually walking away from a burning forest, and the forced normality of the scene makes me laugh non-stop for about a minute. I take a photo of it on my phone, making a mental note to preserve it somehow, maybe as a lock screen or uncaptioned reply.

And by that point it's nine o'clock, and I don't want to mess up my sleep schedule. So I play through one last battle on Chao Island, then turn off the TV and my laptop, and bury myself under the covers of my bed and fall asleep.

Before I drift off completely, I randomly wonder if I might have found a friend in Sonic. But before I can answer myself, I fall unconscious.


	4. Chapter 4: Speechless (Sonic)

**Chapter 4: Speechless**

 **Sorry about that weird coded text glitch - fixed it**

 **Ha! Surprisingly fast update! I'm going to use the rest of my holidays to work on this, as an apology for the long-ass hiatus. And don't go telling me that I can't do that - it's not like I'm doing anything productive otherwise. Besides, it's fun writing this.**

 **I'm going to try and expand the personalities of a few characters in here, as well as introduce a story mechanic I'm going to use a lot in this AU. So let's see how that goes, I guess.**

 **Inconsistencies between retro games IRL and knock-off retro games in-story are known about, but I wanted to make some changes for the story's sake. I know that MMX was a SNES game, and I apologise to the Nintendo kids who will inevitably hate me for putting discount MMX on the discount GBA.**

 **Anyways let's do this! *music***

When I finally drag myself out of bed at about 9am, I don't feel like gaming online just yet. Instead, I pull out my old Gamekid Extra from under my bed and, after searching around for a minute, slot in the Giga Man Y cartridge. It's been a while since I played, and my conversation with Amy yesterday made me feel like re-living those memories. I load up a new save file and go through the first level, then the second. It's just as fun as I remember, and I'm demolishing Mecha Masters for about an hour before I remember that eating is also an important thing.

Uncle Chuck is analysing some science stuff on his computer at the kitchen table. He's a scientist, and always researching something. I've never exactly understood what, but I know that it's important. I don't recognise a single word on his screen, so I ignore it and get a bowl of cereal. "Morning, sonny," Chuck says. I wave to him and sit down with my Fruit Rings. He starts talking to me, asking if I stayed up until 2am again, all that stuff. I just occasionally nod, or shrug, or shake my head, knowing that he'll realise how talkative I'm not being but not bringing any attention to it. Eventually, he drops the question. "Not talking today?" he asks. I just develop a sudden fascination with the last bits of cereal floating around in the bowl and shake my head. He just shrugs and keeps typing on his science report thing. "Okay."

So, I get that you don't know what this is about, and I was hoping that I could just avoid this for now, but I guess I'm gonna have to explain. How do I put this simply? I guess the easiest way to phrase it is that I have a speech problem.

I don't want to make a big deal of it, so I'll explain it here and then it'll only come up when it comes up. So, lots of people do weird stuff with talking sometimes. There are shy people who don't like conversations, and some people stutter, and everyone's tripped over their words at least once. That's normal, that isn't a problem. But with me, it's way worse than what most people might get. For some reason, hell if I know what it is, my brain and my throat don't work together much. I can't slow down if I start speaking really quickly, I stutter like crazy if I'm even slightly freaking out, I mess up sounds sometimes and usually descend into just making the first noises I think of trying to correct myself, my first reaction to being under stress is to stop talking to people until I can chill out. Then there are days, like today, where I'm just kinda silent. Again, hell if I know why it happens, but I don't want to talk. No point forcing myself to stumble over damn near everything I say for a day, so I stop sometimes. Long story short? I'm not going to be making any speeches if I can help it.

But anyways, that's why I'm not talking to anybody today. It doesn't matter, it'll pass. Just don't worry about it, okay?

I realise that I've zoned out completely, and quickly snap my focus back to whatever Chuck's talking about. "…and I'll be out in the field tonight, looking at all those weird energy signatures. I'll be back at two in the morning, and I expect you to be in bed by that time, not still awake playing computer games with your friends. Got it?" he tells me. I nod in response. Before he can add anything else, I dump my empty bowl in the sink and head back to my room.

Time to set up. I grab my headphones and carefully position them over my ears. I leave my mic where it is - it's so cheap and low-quality that moving it won't help, and besides, it's not like I'll be using it today. A quick look at Skype confirms that Silver, Blaze, Knuckles and Rouge are all online and calling. I add myself into the call and my screen is quickly taken over by four sections of the screen. Rouge is in the top-left, Silver is next to her, Blaze is at the bottom left and Knuckles' face inhabits the bottom-right corner. "Hey, someone else is joining," Silver says, always the first guy to notice stuff like that. When my connection finally patches itself up and my video feed comes into the call, he announces, "Hey, Sonic's here! Hi, Sonic! We're playing Chao Island, come and join the server!"

I wave and give a thumbs-up. Everybody else collectively greets me while I'm logging in. When I'm online, Rouge asks, "Me and Knuckles are waiting for Silvaze (I feel like I should clarify that we call Silver and Blaze 'Silvaze') to finish karate, do you want to join a race?"

Knuckles looks to where I guess my video must be on his screen, and when I nod, he nods back and adds me into the race group. "Thank you for arriving, I was dying," he thanks me. "If I had been stuck with Silvaze and Rouge talking romance any longer, I was gonna hurl. Anyways, race time. I'm going to win this time, I swear!"

The look on my face tells him exactly how likely I think that scenario is. My calculations were correct, something which never happens in internet school. Ew, that reminded me of all the online homework I haven't done. Forget about that. Point is, Sonny obliterated the course in 40 seconds, Rouge's Dark-Fly-Power makes it 5 seconds later, and Volcano runs out of stamina near the end, which gives everyone else thirty seconds to have a conversation while Knuckles spams the space bar ineffectively.

Blaze is talking about how unimaginably boring some rich-person party she has to attend tomorrow is going to be, while Silver slips in a few dorky but cute comments like he does whenever he's talking to her, and Rouge offers solutions to the many problems Blaze is being faced with. I just listen. Nobody brings up my lack of commentary. Whenever I'm on silent, everyone just kinda goes with it. My friends are cool like that - we all know each other's limits in conversation or personal trigger buttons, and it's all silently acknowledged and never brought up. It's hidden underneath layers of trash talking and calling each other 'scrubs', but I'm pretty sure that we have the single most all-around caring group of friends ever going on here. I know it sounds cheesy, but I really couldn't ask for anyone better. Of course, you wouldn't guess any of that by listening in at the moment. At the moment, Rouge is giving Knuckles an earful for taking so long in the race, and Blaze is constantly repeating "Silver, stop flirting with me" with no success. When Silver finally agrees to give up the cute comments while giggling hysterically, she suggests, "How about a Karate tournament? We should do another one of those. Although I don't know if that has functionality for an odd number of players…"

"I don't think we need to worry about that," Rouge points out. Everyone's eyes move, and we all notice around the same time that Knuckles has fallen asleep at his computer. He does that sometimes. We all look at each other on-screen, the way that people in sitcoms look directly at the camera after a bad joke.

I have an idea suddenly. I pull my headphones off, and motion for everybody else to do the same thing. Once nobody except for Knuckles is still able to hear the call, I grab my GKE and save my progress in Giga Man Y quickly. Then, making sure that the volume is all the way up (for a 15-year-old handheld, it sure has powerful speakers), and holding it so that the speakers are right next to my microphone, I eject the game cartridge. The screaming noise of the bugged-out music hurts my ears, and judging by the way that Blaze holds her headset at arm's length, Rouge drops her earbuds, and Silver muffles the sound of his headphones with his hands, it's not much better on their end. Seeing as he obviously hasn't taken out his earbuds, the sound hits Knuckles directly, and he jolts awake. The image on-screen, of his mouth opening and him ripping out the earbuds, gives the impression that he's freaking out. Everyone replaces whatever they're using for audio, and I turn off the noise.

Knuckles stops yelling completely, and instead looks like he's about to murder me. I fight off the laughter. He looks like he could break his screen, or scream at me, but instead, he just flips us all off. His voice lowers to a whisper, probably to stop his family from waking up, and he says, "If I wasn't paranoid that my mum's gonna wake up and yell at me, I'd be swearing at you guys with no restrictions. What the hell was that?"

"Sonic's Gamekid. Do you think you should just go to sleep?" Silver replies.

I want to correct Silver and tell him that it's the Gamekid _Extra_ , and that it's the third and most powerful Gamekid after the original black-and-white 8-bit Gamekid and the colour-introducing Gamekid Chrome, as well as the last of the GK lineage before the touchscreen technology that ended that era and brought in the TS and its later more powerful models, but I can't even form the first syllable of an all-knowing/incredibly condescending and exaggerated "Well, _excuse_ me, princess" in my throat before Knuckles is talking anyway and there's no point. "Just because it's 2 in the morning and I fell asleep and I've been fatigued for the past 3 hours and my eyes hurt and I have precisely four seconds' worth of attention span…"

"Go to bed, Knuckie," Rouge instructs him, like an irritated parent. "In fact, I might turn in just after this tourney, it's pretty late over in Station Square."

"Fine," Knuckles whines. "Night, guys."

There's a chorus of 'goodnight', as well as me silently waving, before Knuckles shuts the screen on his laptop and his video feed disappears, causing the Skype windows to rearrange themselves. "I'll set up the tournament," Blaze offers. It only takes her a few seconds to select our usual rules and add everybody into the tournament, and we're quickly in battle. I'm facing off against Silver first, and it's Blaze v Rouge somewhere else in cyberspace.

The fight begins. Silver is trying to psych me out, but I ignore him. Chuck opens the door to my room a little. "What was that noise?" he asks. I just hold up my GKE in response, not taking my eyes off of the fight. "You played that thing all the time when you were little," he comments, shutting the door. Usually at this point, I would yell a snarky comment, like "The Giga Man Y series was the singular reason for my continued existence," but my head's in the game and my voice box is smoking weed or whatever the hell it does on these days, I don't really know or care.

"Well, Sonny? What are you gonna do now? Aqua has you cornered, and she's not gonna have any pity," Silver trash talks, going in for a hit with his Hero-Swim-Run. I just tap the right key with exact timing to perform a perfect dodge and counter. Sonny slides under Aqua's fist and kicks from the side, doing a bit more damage. So far, he's winning, but he doesn't have great defence. One punch and we're probably screwed. Silver keeps trying to break my mojo, but he isn't getting through to me. I'm focused on dodging and blocking. On the other side of the tourney, Blaze sounds like she's having trouble. Rouge just yawns, although I don't know if that's sarcasm to emphasise the simplicity of what she's doing, or if she's literally just tired. Silver isn't having much luck against me, either. He knows that he's losing, and he's started to run out of snark. "You know, trash talking is way more engaging when your opponent trashes back," he whines.

"You should be glad that Sonic isn't saying anything," Blaze reassures him. "If you had heard him against Knuckles a few days ago- GOD DAMN IT!"

"Yes!" Rouge cheers. "That's Scarlie one, Ember zero! How's it going over there, boys?"

There are 20 seconds left to battle. I dodge around Aqua and take the opportunity for a combo move, knocking her health down some more. Sonny hasn't taken a single hit, and our victory is all but assured. Silver sighs and stands up. "Screw this, I'm done," he complains. I shrug and continue to beat up his defenceless Chao for ten seconds, before the winners are announced.

Me and Rouge will be battling for first place, while Silvaze is going to try for third. "Oh no, a fight between lovers!" Rouge gasps in mock-horror. "How will they bear to attack each other mercilessly?"

"Well, to be fair, I'll probably just wipe the floor with Aqua effortlessly because Silver's too much of a good guy to fight his girlfriend," Blaze points out.

"Um, I didn't ask for part two," Rouge retaliates, just before round 2 begins. It's Sonny v Scarlie, a battle which I know won't be easy. If I can get a few decent hits in, victory won't be too hard, but Rouge's Chao hits like a truck and has great dodging skills. I quickly sidestep the first attack she sends our way, and there's a similar result when I aim a punch with no success. "Well? Do you plan on ever keeping this battle moving forwards?" she asks tauntingly. "I can't hang around here forever, you know. I have a bed behind me which seems much more interesting that this battle at the moment."

"You know, Silver, the entire point of this is that we _fight_ to get third place," Blaze complains. I guess she's ripping him to shreds in-game.

"Yes… but that would mean hurting the love of my life," Silver flirts. Blaze blushes, and he smiles triumphantly and continues to not do a damn thing.

Rouge sighs. "This isn't awfully challenging, but at least it's more fun than it must be for Silvaze," she comments. "Come on, Sonny, are you scared to hit Scarlie? It can't possibly be that hard to actually _hit_ her, can it? Come on, land a blow so that I won't feel so bad for not pulling my punches." I look at her face on-screen with the same expression I used when Knuckles was sure that he would win a race, then sigh heavily and tap the keys faster. I finally get the first hit of the battle in, and punch the air in victory as Scarlie is knocked back a little. Rouge gasps. "How could you? Don't you know that it's inconsiderate to hit a lady?" she fake-scolds me, then starts mashing the keys harder. I dodge and weave, using Sonny's superior speed to our advantage. Thirty seconds are left to battle. (Blaze completely obliterated Silver after 40 seconds of their fight.) My one lucky break has put me in the lead, but the match isn't over yet, so I'm not letting my guard down. I go for another hit, but Rouge is ready for me. She executes a perfect dodge, and I'm not ready. I scramble for the keys, but it's too late. Scarlie hits Sonny in the back, and he goes flying across the screen, knocked right to the edge of the arena and practically knocked out in one go. Critical hit. Before I can react, the match is over and I've lost.

I throw my headphones angrily while Rouge celebrates. I can hear Chuck yelling something along the lines of "Don't throw your headphones, they'll break," but I ignore him. I look at the results on-screen. _First place: MadSpaceGirl/Scarlie. Second place: SuperSonicChao/Sonny. Third place: xXSol_PrincessXx/Ember. Fourth place: its-no-use-06/Aqua._ Rouge seems incredibly happy with herself. "And that's another victory secured for myself," she says. "Well, that was fun, but the midnight hours have approached me and left me absolutely exhausted. I'm going to go to sleep now. Goodnight!"

With that, Rouge's video feed vanishes and she logs out of Chao Island. The boxes around the edge of my screen rearrange themselves. "It's pretty late here, and I'm going to need a _lot_ of sleep to have enough energy to force myself through a day's worth of being nice to important people tomorrow, so I'm gonna log out as well," Blaze says. "See you guys later!"

"Goodnight, beautiful!" Silver says cheerfully. Blaze turns red and smiles shyly before her video disappears as well, leaving just me and Silver. For a while, neither of us says anything. Then, Silver asks, "Wanna race?"

I spend most of the day online. Tails joins in for a few hours, then he has to go to bed. Knuckles logs back on and us guys have a tourney, which Tails wins. Later in the day, Rouge comes back for ten minutes, then she has to leave to catch the bus to school really early. Silver has to disconnect because he's doing a charity thing, helping to rebuild some houses or something. He does a lot of that stuff, even a year and a half after the bomb hit. Knuckles calls me a scrub about four hundred times. I divert half of my attention to playing Giga Man Y (which saved properly, thank god) on my now not-screaming GKE, which makes him even more furious with me. I manage to defeat not only Knuckles, but another two Mecha Masters.

Knuckles' mum tells him that he has to go somewhere, so I'm left alone. With nobody to battle, I log out of Chao Island and keep playing Giga Man Y. I've nearly beaten the game when I get another Skype notification. I pause to check it. It's Amy. I smile, wondering what my new friend has to say. The message reads, 'Hi! I'm on the bus to school again. I don't have enough data to video call, but can we just use audio? I'd like to at least hear your voice! :)'

I look at the message for a moment and sigh. Oh, boy. No, we can't just use audio, I can't say anything. I don't normally like calling without video - if I start stuttering, it's easier for me to get my message across with an image - but usually I can handle it for a minute. Except for these days. For god's _sake_ , why was it today that I forgot how to speak? I can't just tell her that I physically cannot make an audio-only call. How do you even do that? 'I'm sorry, but my voice box is currently tripping balls and will not respond to my mind. Try and call later, when I have the physical capability to actually say anything.' Nope, there's no way to phrase that and make it sound normal. I don't want to keep her waiting, so I try desperately to think of an excuse.

Amy hasn't said anything else, so I finally go with the closest thing I have to the truth. I don't tell her about my inability to talk normally most of the time, because that's not the kind of thing I advertise on a giant glowing sign with neon lights that looks like it came straight out of the 60's. I just send the message, almost laughing at the technicality of it.

'Sorry, my microphone's broken right now. It should be fixed soon.'

Like I said earlier, I usually don't care about this weird speech disorder. It's just a thing that happens when it happens, and I've had it my whole life, and I know how to deal with it. But at times like this, when it slows down my relationship with somebody, I really wish that it does get fixed soon.

But hey, you can't have everything, right?


End file.
